WAREHAM — John E. Williams lived a quiet life in retirement, remaining close to his three adult children and regularly piloting a Cessna aircraft as a member of the Brockton Flying Club.

But friends of Williams, a 70-year-old who lived alone in a modest ranch house on Glen Charlie Road, were left searching for answers Wednesday after his bullet-riddled body was found a day earlier inside his residence.

“We were all shocked,’’ said Ted Nelson, president of the Brockton Flying Club, which Williams belonged to for more than a decade. “What can you say? These things aren’t supposed to happen.’’

Law enforcement officials released few details about Williams’s death on Wednesday.

Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz’s office said in a statement that Wareham police found Williams unresponsive in his home at about noon on Tuesday, bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

“There does not appear to be any threat to the general public at this time,’’ the district attorney’s office said.

Prosecutors did not include any information about a possible suspect or motive for the shooting, and a spokeswoman for Cruz declined to comment on Wednesday evening. Wareham police referred questions to Cruz’s office.

Nelson said in a phone interview that Williams had flown recreationally for decades and that the two flew together many times. Williams was divorced, Nelson said, but kept in close touch with his two daughters and son.

Working telephone numbers for Williams’s family could not be located.

“He had a lot of interests,’’ Nelson said. “He was a pretty active guy for his age. He had a passion for flying. I think he played golf once in a while. An easy going guy, he didn’t have a mean streak in him.’’

Nelson said he saw Williams last week during a meeting concerning the airport in Taunton where the flying club is based, and he appeared “completely normal to me. It didn’t seem like there was anything going on. . . . If there was, he probably would have told me.’’

He said he believed Williams had worked as an estimator for a company in Hyannis before retiring.

Williams bought his house on Glen Charlie Road across from a pond in November 2013, according to municipal records.

On Wednesday afternoon, a private cleaning company removed items from the home. A red car with the license plate “FLYBYE’’ was visible in the driveway, and a swingset and a small boat were in the back yard.

A neighbor, Tim Card, 62, said Williams’s girlfriend occasionally stayed with him. Card said he did not know the woman’s name and he was unaware of any problems between the couple.

In fact, Card said, Williams generally kept to himself and he only recalled one conversation that they had in passing.

“I shook his hand, he said he was retired, working at the Salvation Army part time, doing [odd] jobs,’’ Card said. “Not a bad neighbor. . . . He seemed pleasant.’’

Workers at the Salvation Army on Cranberry Highway in Wareham said no one was available to speak with a reporter.

Another neighbor of Williams, Jim Munise, 61, said he did not see or hear anything amiss on Tuesday but later observed police and the medical examiner’s van at Williams’s residence. News of the shooting was “unsettling,’’ Munise said, “but we’re not insulated from these types of things.’’

He said Wareham has fallen on hard economic times and he believes there is “a high rate of crime, drugs. It seems higher to me than would be [normal] for an area like this, more of a suburban area.’’

Card was also saddened by the news.

“It’s depressing,’’ he said. “What do you do?’’

John R. Ellement can be reached at ellement@ globe.com. Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@ globe.com.